Xfce Forum

cottrell@wfu.edu

Member

Registered: 2019-04-30

Posts: 5

suspend help, please!

I'm running xfce4 on Arch, on a Dell XPS 8300 desktop. This is after switching to Arch from Fedora 41 when it went out of support.

Suspending, via the "Suspend" button in the xfce logout dialog, was working fine on Fedora but it's giving me trouble on Arch. The effect of clicking that button is to freeze the desktop (no keyboard or mouse input) without suspending the machine. To try to avoid a hard power-down I tried logging on from another machine via ssh. I was able to log in but neither "sudo systemctl resume" nor "sudo poweroff" worked: in both cases systemd said a suspend was in progress.

Having read that you don't want contention between systemd and xfce4-power-manager I've tried disabling the latter (making sure it's not running) but that has made no difference. I'm thinking of going the other way -- enabling xfce4-power-manager and editing the relevant logind config file to make systemd ignore suspend. But before doing that I'd like to know if there's a smarter approach.

In case it helps, here's what journalctl had to say about one of my failed suspend attempts:

Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle systemd-logind[606]: The system will suspend now!
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle rtkit-daemon[708]: Demoting known real-time threads.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle rtkit-daemon[708]: Successfully demoted thread 711 of process 701.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle NetworkManager[605]: <info>  [1767641492.9551] manager: sleep: sleep requested (sleeping: no  enabled: yes)
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle rtkit-daemon[708]: Successfully demoted thread 701 of process 701.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle NetworkManager[605]: <info>  [1767641492.9552] device (wlp2s0b1): state change: unavailable -> unmanaged (reason 'unmanaged-nm-disabled', managed-type: 'full')
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle rtkit-daemon[708]: Successfully demoted thread 747 of process 702.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle NetworkManager[605]: <info>  [1767641492.9555] device (wlp2s0b1): set-hw-addr: reset MAC address to 9C:B7:0D:1A:BA:D3 (unmanage)
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle rtkit-daemon[708]: Successfully demoted thread 702 of process 702.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle NetworkManager[605]: <info>  [1767641492.9560] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISABLED (ASLEEP)
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle rtkit-daemon[708]: Successfully demoted thread 719 of process 703.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle rtkit-daemon[708]: Successfully demoted thread 703 of process 703.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle rtkit-daemon[708]: Demoted 6 threads.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle systemd[1]: Reached target Sleep.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle systemd[1]: Starting System Suspend...
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle systemd[1]: user.slice: Unit now frozen.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle systemd[1]: user-1000.slice: Unit now frozen-by-parent.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle systemd-sleep[84434]: Successfully froze unit 'user.slice'.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle systemd[1]: session-1.scope: Unit now frozen-by-parent.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle systemd[1]: user@1000.service: Unit now frozen-by-parent.
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle systemd-sleep[84434]: Performing sleep operation 'suspend'...
Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle kernel: PM: suspend entry (deep)
Jan 05 14:31:33 myrtle kernel: Filesystems sync: 0.288 seconds

Then on logging in from another machine:

Jan 05 14:35:11 myrtle systemd-logind[606]: New session '3' of user 'allin' with class 'user' and type 'tty'.
Jan 05 14:35:11 myrtle systemd[1]: Cannot start frozen unit Session 3 of User allin.
Jan 05 14:35:11 myrtle sshd-session[84460]: pam_systemd(sshd:session): Varlink call io.systemd.Login.CreateSession failed: io.systemd.Login.UnitAllocationFailed
Jan 05 14:35:33 myrtle sudo[84500]:    allin : TTY=pts/1 ; PWD=/home/allin ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/systemctl resume
  -> message "can't resume"

Last edited by cottrell@wfu.edu (2026-01-06 17:47:50)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 12,426

Re: suspend help, please!

We'll definitely need log files to see whats happening. Look at using "journalctl" to get log files from around the suspend time.

On a hunch, try using the intel_iommu=off kernel parameter.

Edit: missed your edit. Try the kernel parameter.

Added later 09 min 14 s:

Jan 05 14:31:32 myrtle kernel: PM: suspend entry (deep)

Looks like you're system is trying to go into S3 sleep mode. You could try "freeze" instead (if its supported). Ref: https://docs.kernel.org/admin-guide/pm/ … tates.html.

Also, interesting related link: https://nwildner.com/posts/2024-06-05-d … p-suspend/.

Last edited by ToZ (2026-01-06 17:51:29)

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cottrell@wfu.edu

Member

Registered: 2019-04-30

Posts: 5

Re: suspend help, please!

Thanks, I'll try intel_iommu=off and report back next week when I get back from a trip.

BTW I should have mentioned that the Dell XPS 8300 is a desktop machine.

cottrell@wfu.edu

Member

Registered: 2019-04-30

Posts: 5

Re: suspend help, please!

Thank you for the suggestion, but I found I could solve the problem via a systemd tweak; namely, creating a file named

/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-suspend.service.d/disable_freeze.conf

with content:

[Service]
Environment="SYSTEMD_SLEEP_FREEZE_USER_SESSIONS=false"

I've seen this offered as a fix for systems with Nvidia graphics. My Dell XPS 8300 has Radeon graphics but it works for me too.